Family

Community is essential for my growth and development. Community is my life-line. Community keeps me balanced, focused, on track and able to conquer my fears and achieve my dreams. Establishing a community can take time or it can happen fast-out of desperation. The people that I draw into my inner circle have earned the right to breathe life into me. Developing community takes time, intentionality and effort. Trustworthiness, honesty, authenticity, faithfulness and enthusiasm are character traits that are important to me as I build my community.

When I was first married, my husband and I were both in school so our community developed fairly easily with classmates and church friends, but then we began to move around a lot because my hubby was in the Navy. Developing a community was imperative because we had small children by then and I needed the support since my husbands hours were ridiculously long. I desperately needed my love cup filled to overflowing so that I could be a good mom and a blessing to him when he returned from work especially after his 36 hour shifts. I quickly started searching for like-minded gals from church and wives of my husband’s colleagues that needed friends like I did. I reached out and invited them into my life. We started play groups and babysitting co-ops. We organized tennis dates and park days. We bought season passes to the zoo and Sea World and went once a week on a field trip with the kids.  As we spent time together sharing life, our struggles, our joys and our frustrations, our community grew into a sisterhood of bonded friends. None of us would have survived those years without that community of friends.

During the years that I had school aged daughters, there was always so much going …

Love is in the air. Valentine’s Day is around the corner and everywhere you turn something or someone is telling you how to express your love. A few weeks ago I heard a message about the Kingdom of God and how the teachings of Jesus are the map to know about the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is the #1 subject that Jesus taught His disciples about-He was passionate about modeling Kingdom values here on earth. So during this season of Valentine’s, chocolates, flowers and Love, I am going to focus on reflecting Kingdom values. I am going to ask myself if my attitudes and actions represent someone who models Kingdom values. I am going to pay attention to the needs of others and actually do something that shows love.

• Take time to make that phone call to a friend.
• Drop by and visit with someone who is housebound, sick or recovering from an illness or from surgery.
• Write a note of encouragement.
• Bake some cookies and take them to a neighbor.
• Send Valentine’s cards to your children or grandchildren.
• Make a meal for a friend just for fun.

When we take the time to stop our busy lives and think about what truly matters, we will bless others and have a deeper sense of emotional satisfaction and joy.

In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus teaches that we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Salt is an amazing chemical. Salt is used in cooking to enhance flavor, as a preservative and as a flavor suppressant. Salt enhances the flavor of what it is seasoning-you add salt to a stew or soup to enhance the flavor of the meat and vegetables that are slowly cooking together. The result is not a salty taste …

Falling in love through service is an incredible experience. When your heart is moved by an unmet need and you know that you are being called to participate in fulfilling that need, an instantaneous thing happens in your heart-you fall in love with the people you are serving. TRUE greatness in this world comes through serving others. True love also comes when you give 100% to another person and that happens through serving one another.

This weekend, I attended a Gogo Grandmothers Board meeting where I spent a glorious day with friends renewing our hearts and reaffirming our commitment for the continued work being accomplished in Malawi. I feel so privileged to be a board member for the SAFE /Gogo Grandmothers ministry and have loved every minute of my time serving with the other members of the board. (SAFE stands for Sub-Saharan Family Enrichment) We serve a mighty God who moves in mighty ways! My current project involves organizing a manual for preparing groups who want to go have a hands on experience in Malawi with the SAFE/Gogo Grandmothers ministry. I am excited for the day when I get to go meet the Gogos and the staff in Malawi. It will be a blessing to someday meet the people that my heart already loves.

Here is a chart from the 2015 End of Year report that shows how our ministry has grown because of people like you who have joined in to serve and put their Love in Action!

Gogo Grandmothers provides for the orphans of AIDS in Malawi, Africa by assisting the grandmothers who care for them. In America, and across the world, individuals and Gogo Grandmothers groups (often uniting women who are grandmothers themselves) gather monthly to pray and carry out fund-raising projects that provide what poor …

As the new year rolls into “full steam ahead”, I have tried to take time each day to be grateful for all of my blessings and focus on having my “walk” match my “talk”. I want to be a person who at the end of the day, lives out the things that I believe in my words and actions and behavior. I really want to be a genuine person, vulnerable and open to growth, correction and change. I strive to have my attitudes and motives support a life of authenticity and service. I am hoping to be an example for my daughters to follow. I believe that each one of us has a circle of influence. Those people who we interact with on a regular basis or people that we see once in a while but when we are together we have an instant deep connection with them. I am not a person who likes to be in a clique and I love interacting with people from all walks of life. But that does not mean I am not regularly tempted to get caught in the lie that tells me my significance is determined by who likes me, who emails me, who stops by…….I think we all get caught in this insecurity cycle. I want to be free to live and love and learn. I want to be ready for whatever circumstances come my way. I want to stand with conviction and face the challenges in my life with confidence and willingness to trust God in every situation.

COMPLACENCY is a word that keeps coming up for me as I have been preparing to teach a lesson at our women’s bible study. Complacency is a feeling of security, a sense of quiet pleasure often while unaware of the potential danger …